The present invention relates generally to gas-fired barbecue grills and more particularly to an improved construction for the type of barbecue grill employing or refractory briquets heated to incandescence by an underlying gas burner.
In conventional barbecue grills, the cooking or food holding grill is usually suspended directly over a suitable source of heat, such as charcoal or gas heated ceramic briquets. As the food, especially meat products, is cooked, juices that are removed during the cooking process drip upon the hot coals and produce a flavoring smoke which imparts a charcoal or barbecue flavor to the foodstuff. Gas-fired barbecue grills of the type mentioned have in the past employed a bar type grate with parallel wire or rod-like stringers for holding the ceramic coals above the gas burner. A cooking grill of similar construction is then positioned to hold the foodstuff over the resulting bed of ceramic coals.
One of the major problems encountered with such prior art grills is that a portion of the drippings are not incinerated and therefore filter down through the coal bed and drip onto the gas burner, clogging and otherwise fouling the gas ports. One prior are solution to this problem has been to shield the gas ports by mounting baffles of various types on the burner. Such baffles usually include an overlying shelf of lip arranged to cover the burner ports from above. These solutions trap unburnt gases under the shield and cause impingement of burner flames against the shield, resulting in incomplete combustion and inefficient burner operation.
Although cooking grills with grooved members have been used to support the food itself, such grills defeat the flavoring function of barbecue grills and introduce problems of their own. Cooking grills employing grooved members do not allow any fat or drippings to contact the heated coals as necessary for the production of flavoring smoke. Furthermore, the use of wide channel members immediately adjacent to the foodstuff shields food surfaces from cooking heat and interferes greatly with the cooking process. Besides substantially reducing the cooking rate, frequent movement of the foodstuff is required to expose those shielded portions. All of the foregoing disadvantages are voided through the use of the present invention which optimizes the heating and flavoring functions of a barbecue grill while fully protecting the underlying heat source.